I downloaded the percussion part from Jeremy-990363833 – Funked-up, and downloaded the a cappella part "130 bpm - Dbm - Got it good" from freevocals.com. I twisted the a cappella part by truncating them into chunks and changing their rhythm and pitches.

The first two chunks of the voice is twisted by pulling its timestamp and make it "Beat" setting to create a hiccup effect. The other part of vocal I change their pitch and rhythm.

I added in the "Congas-128 bpm" under "Clips" and changed its way of pan to make a dazzling effect.

The 5-second chunk of music of Duke Ellinton contains the sounds of trumpets, strings, and probably guitar. I truncated the whole piece beat by beat and put these beats in the map of the pad. As to the drum part, I took one tune of the guitar, made the change of their length, and adjusted their pitch, to generate a set of drum rhythm, and to create pitches in F1, Ab1, Eb2. I also adjusted one part of the pitch to its highest to create a sense of hi-hat.

I generated 4-bar percussion first in the session window. Then I use keyboard associated with the map of the pad, which stores one beat per cell. I played in the trumpet part in first. Then I played in the walking bass. Then I combined these three part together by recording them into the view window. Then I started to adjust its ending and added audio effects.

The ending part is hard to generate. Finally I raised its pitch and lowered down its gain size.

As to its audio effects, I used Utilities, Reverb, Auto Pan, EQ Eight, Compressor, Ambidal, and Fade. I used these effects because it sounds dry and choppy originally. The dynamic ranges widely and all the sounds pack at the same spot. After the adjustment, which added the sense of space between different instruments and made it sound charmer.

It was very fun to create a piece of something based on noises. I made it in postmodern-style. Only noises and drum patterns are used in this track. I utilize the noise recording from Glennise Rabsatt, Jeremy Mudd and myself. Rabsatt had recorded the sound of door, spoon stirring sound, and coffee pot. Mudd had recorded a sound in the percussion class including talking and game sound. I recorded the chirping sound of my own bird stubby, a parakeet. I staggered the short noises in as a percussion. For a long section, I sometimes reversed some sections, and transposed its pitch level and its dynamics, making that sound like running-out-of-battery status. At the end, I added another cymbal sound. However, I twisted the cymbal sound by reversing it, lowering down the end of it's pitch, resampling the sound with another paired cymbal sound, and created a sense of leaving Jet. Finally, I put reverb in the drum section.

Additionally, I used Kit Core 909 for kick drum, and I used Blue Thunder Kit to fill in the measure, to create a sense of turning wheel.

I just self-leaned Ableton Live 9 for up to 10 days. With the length of learning a new DAW, I am quite satisfied with the work. But there is definitely some more improvement worthy to make if I have more time.

Jessie J - Price Tag ( Live Acoustic Music Video) is a live acoustic recording. It faithfully conveys the timbre of Jessie's voice and the acoustic guitar. It sounds as if we were at the scene. The sound quality is clear without any special effects engaged.

Noah Creshevsky's NORMAL GENES is a type of hyperrealist. Noah Creshevsky even created this term in music: hyperrealism, "a term he uses to describe an electroacoustic language constructed from sounds found in our shared environment that he handles in ways that are exaggerated or intense." The music proceeds in the collages of different chunks of music. Every chunk of music is a piece of a repertoire using acoustic instruments. However, it sounds like the scenes keeping get switched to the next scene. The beginning of each chunk starts comparatively soft, then it gets louder, and then it gets cut off. Creshevsky uses vocal in one chunk and switches to string alternatively, to intensify its effects of switches between scenes. If we utilize live acoustic vocal and instruments to perform, It will be very costly in terms of its difficulties and economics.

Morton Subotnick: Silver apples of the Moon (1967) is what I thought as surrealist. It begins with a mosquito-like-flying sound, ensued by a bunch of sounds of pressure cook in different frequencies, that staggering in different timing to act like percussion instruments. Then a single string play in atonal accompanied by the above sounds with high reverbs. A shocking sounds of brass bombard the tracks accompanied by the bell, string, electronic keyboard and steam-like percussions. Those sounds suddenly collapse in the descending portamento in slow motion. Following above, a new sound of a high-pitched electronic flute, and sound of a theremin, appear occasionally in a portamento gesture to create a mysterious atmosphere. Then a sound of drilling metal engages and act as another percussion. Sometimes a sound of bird chirping staggers in a quick punch. The overall clip presents a space of mystery and fail of remote radio deliverance. If these sounds are created with live acoustic instruments, I would say that the instrument must has been fully explored by all the possibilities to create different timbres from its own original sound. And I am not sure whether it is worthy all the efforts since it is comparatively much easier to manipulate in the system of electronic music. But I believe that there is a trend to merge these two approaches, i.e., live acoustic music and electronic music, and to evolve to another milestone of music composition of revolution.

'Uprise' is written by Matt Bellamy, and produced by Muse, with the famous Engineer, Mark 'Spike' Stent.

This song has used over than eighty audio tracks - including 35 drum tracks, five bass tracks, and 20 special vocal tracks - plus a number of effect, subgroup and volume tracks. It is special that this song uses no fewer than 14 mics in total, but there are only nine tracks.

According to Spike Stent, He did not added any samples. Although it is a big Session, but all the drums were brilliantly recorded. For him, 'Uprising' is very typical, with four kick drums being subgrouped to one track, and same thing applied to the snare, etc... He is working in the box, using sub-compression on these groups. In addition, he also has individual plug-ins on each individual drum track.

He normally start with the drums, and then the bass. He let the rhythm section rock to catch a good feel, then he will get the vocals in and other key hook elements. There is one thing interesting, after he puts in everything, he will take the vocal out again and start dialing in all the other parts, adjusting the guitar and so on. It is a hard balance between the power of the rhythm track with the right emotion, and the audible vocal. Instead of make the vocal stand out alone, he also needs to seek the right balance to keep the power in the track.

The following lists are the tracks break-down:

Drums: Waves SSL Channel, desk EQ & dynamics, Metric Halo Channel Strip, Chandler EMI TG12413 (plug‑in) & TG1 (hardware). The entire 'Uprising' Session is far too big to print or even view on a single screen! Here are some of the drum tracks, including tom overdubs (lower half of screen) added by the band in Devon. As well as mixing on his favoured SSL G‑series desk, Stent also made extensive use of Waves' SSL E and G Channel plug‑ins. These are the settings he used on the SM7 bass drum mic.The Chandler/EMI TG12413 limiter was used to get the room mics to pump. ​

"There's a kick master, which is a subgroup of the four kick tracks, and which came up on the desk. But I also would have had some of the individual tracks come up on the board. The same with the snare. The stereo subgroups for the toms, overheads and room mics would each have come up on two channels on the SSL, but in these cases no individual tracks were sent to the desk."I had the Waves SSL Channel on the first kick, which was recorded with a Shure SM7. Why did I use a plug‑in and not the desk? Good question. No idea. It's what I do. I don't think about it too much. Does the SSL Channel sound like the real thing? Let's say that I like what it does and I have used them for years. I had the SSL Channel on three of the four kick-drum mics, and the 'D' on the other one [indicating the use of a plug‑in on that channel] is something dynamic. I will have used tons more EQ and compression on the SSL, all to get it to colour and punch right. I'm EQ'ing for accuracy and getting that bottom end tight. I hate flappy, untight bottom end. I like subby low, but I don't want it to sound like chaos. On this track it was tricky, because there's a lot of rumbling going on, so I had to manage the bottom end really precisely."What I often do is have my main drum sound under the main drum faders at the left of the console, and then I'll send stuff out via the small faders to a pair of groups and then to outboard EQ and compression, and it will come back up on separate channels. With the more powerful and punchy things like kick and snare I'll probably EQ this very toppy and subby, and will then mix that in underneath the main sound. Different section of the songs may have more or less of that submixed compression and EQ. You try to find the right thing for each section of the song. I have done this process for years. I also have the SSL Channel on the snare top and snare bottom mics, and the greyed out plug‑in 'C' is probably the [Metric Halo] Channel Strip [see screen on previous page]. I will also have added lots of board EQ and compression to the snare, and nothing else, because all the space comes from the room sound mics. I did the same with the claps, the toms, and the overheads: Waves SSL plug‑in on the subgroup and EQ and compression on the board. I don't compress things to death, but I do use heavy compression."I blended the six room mics together and automated them in the box for different sections of the song. On the console I will then have ridden them a lot for the major sections. All these different room mics are the result of the way Adrian tracks, which was brilliant, because it gave me a lot of options. I had a Chandler EMI TG12413 limiter on one of the room mics, because I'm hyping the room, making it pump a bit. Over the inserts on the channels on the console I would have had a TG1 outboard as well. Underneath the rooms subgroup track are the toms overdubs, in total nine tracks. Seven of them are the same part but with different room sounds, so it gave me a lot of colours to work with. They're subgrouped and go to tracks 13‑14 on the console. The SSL Channel helps to make the toms more accurate. The band also rehearsed and recorded in a house in Devon, and five tracks of overdubs from that are in this session; 'ETSO' is the subgroup that went to the board."Dom [Dominic Howard] is very particular about his drums, and wants to ascertain that every drum fill comes through. So I spent quite a bit of time making sure all his toms tonally were correct and fills were exaggerated. Dom is an incredible drummer and he knows exactly what he wants. In fact, Muse are an extremely tight band and incredible musicians, and everyone was very clear on where they were going. By the way, I would have checked every single one of these drums and room tracks for phase and then I would have checked the groups against the kick and the snare. I'll check whether the kick and snare tracks all line up, and so on. I'm flipping phase all the time. I'm anal about that, because it is essential for getting a really tight mix which sounds big on radio, cars, laptop, and so on.”

"The way the band and Adrian had tracked the bass was incredible. Chris [Wolstenholme] has a great bass sound, and I think he used several different pedals and amps and stuff. It was definitely an eye‑opener to me and resulted in a fantastic bass sound. Adrian recorded five bass tracks: a bass synth, a DI, a bass sub, and two tracks of bass effects that are subgrouped to 'bassFX', which comes up on channel 15 on the console. There's again a Waves SSL Channel on the top bass, plus a Sansamp, which was automated for sections. The Purple MC77 limiter is just holding that track into place. The Sound Toys Filter Freak plug‑in on the remaining four bass tracks was automated to come in and out in certain sections.”

Guitars: Sound Toys Filter Freak & Echoboy, Empirical Labs Distressor.Given the number of tracks in the Session, it's perhaps surprising that there are only five guitar tracks: the three highlighted in the centre of the screen, plus 'HIGT' and 'GTR1' (the solo) further down.

"There were five guitar tracks, split over two different places in the Session. It's the way the Session came, and because it was so well‑organised I simply worked with it as it was. The main rhythm guitar was sent to channel 22 on the board, the 'guitarchops' to 23‑24, the 'hi guitar' to 28 and the solo to 29. I had a Filter Freak on one of the 'guitarchops' and the rest was done on the board."I would have added a delay plug‑in, probably Echoboy or Waves H‑Delay. It's rare that I use reverb. I prefer to use plug‑in delays these days, because you can really automate them, and I love the way you can be very creative with them and yet the sound always comes back the same. I'll now only use an outboard delay if I want a certain sound from a delay, like the AMS, or the [Eventide] H3000, or the [Roland] Space Echo or any of the tape delays I still have lying around. But I use them less and less for mixing. They only tend to come out while I'm tracking a band. On the desk I sent the guitars to a subgroup and that would have gone through outboard compression and EQ and then mixed back in. What outboard? Probably some Distressors.”

Synths: Waves SSL Channel & Mondo Mod, Digidesign Revibe.A rare example of a reverb in a 'Spike' Stent mix! Here, Digidesign's Revibe is being used as an insert on one of the synth parts.

"There were half a dozen synth tracks and they sounded great, so I didn't add many effects, other than a reverb that Matt wanted, and which I can't tell you about. There's an SSL Channel on one of the synth lines, and a Trim Adjuster on some others, probably because I wanted to change the timing on them. The Revibe was a reverb, of course, and the Mondo Mod added some sort of chorus effect. On the desk the synths were fairly straight.”

"The lead vocal tracks are called 'ALT VRS 1' for the verse and 'ALTCH1' for the chorus.Some lead ('ALT VRS 1' and 'ALTCH1+tn') and backing vocal parts from the Session. Stent makes widespread use of de‑esser plug‑ins, but always takes care to tailor the settings to the track in question. I had Waves' De‑esser and SSL Channel on both. There would have been standard EQ and I would have automated the SSL plug‑in for different sections of the song. Do you see the '25+' marking in the I/O section? [See screenshot at bottom of page.] That means that the lead vocals went to channels 25, 26 and 27 on the board, and I had different chains on each. On channel 25 I would have had the Dbx 902 de‑esser, going into an LA2A, on channel 26 again the 902 but going into a blackface 1176 Special Edition, and on channel 27 the Standard Audio Leveler, which I love. It's great for colouring the sound and adding warmth and distortion. I would have mixed these in, again checking the phase. Why both the Waves and the Dbx de‑essers? I'll go in hard with scooping things out with the Waves, and the Dbx is just a general de‑esser that's just tickling the signal. My mixes are quite bright, so I really need to make sure that I keep these esses under control, depending on the vocalist and the song. The LA2A and the 1176 offer different sounds. I probably compressed the vocals quite a lot, and also would have EQ'ed them on the board."At the bottom of the Session I had a number of effect tracks, to which I sent the lead vocals via busses 51‑56. Several aux tracks with different effect chains were created for the vocals. On this one, a Sansamp distortion feeds Sound Toys' Echoboy delay.On 51‑52 was the Sansamp, with a bit of distortion, probably only for certain sections. The Sansamp was going into an Echoboy, which was again automated for sections. Then 53‑54 and 55‑56 also had the Echoboy, with eighth‑note and quarter‑note delays. All these vocal effects are coming up on channels 39‑40 on the console, where they probably had some compression and gating."There are quite a lot of backing vocals, on which I again used the Waves De‑esser, and had compression and EQ on the desk. The de‑essers would have been individually tweaked for each track. I don't just slap on a de‑esser and hope, even if it is the same vocalist. His performance and/or the microphone may be different. You can see that one de‑esser on the backing vocals affects 4326Hz [see left]; the other [is set to] 4362, which is a minimal difference, but it's there.”

End Mix

"Matt really wanted me to mix to half‑inch, so I mixed to that and back into Pro Tools. The band has an ATR100 tape machine which I used for this. I don't normally mix to tape any more, because tape batches are so unreliable these days. I'd also brought my Lavry Gold A‑D converters for going back into Pro Tools. For going to the desk we used the regular 192 D‑A converters, but I'm very particular about what I mix through, and I love that Lavry. Muse also have one of them, I can't remember which one we used, theirs or mine. They're fantastic musicians and I really enjoyed working on this album.”

I download the midi file from http://www.jsbach.net/midi/midi_goldbergvariations.html. The file name is Variatio 10 a 1 Clav. Fughetta - 988-v10.mid.

At first, there are four tracks of all smokey Clavier. It sounds narrow without any sense of space. I changed the instrumentation with the following list: Classical Acoustic Guitar, Smokey Clavier (High voice), Smokey Clavier (Low voice), and Tight Synth Bass. I adjusted individual pan position, master dynamic, master EQ setting to Hi-Fi, and master Compression to Classical Warm.

The result is 95% satisfactory to me. There is one problem with the Classical Acoustic Guitar. When it plays fast trills, it is accompanied with some high-pitched rubbing sound. I don't know how to eliminate that sound. So I left it there. If I have more time, I may add some background sound, like wind or bird chirping sound, to cover that high-pitched rubbing noise.

My new attempts on Groove Pizza app using the African Drumming concepts and borrowing the instrumentation of Hip Hop and Techno, combining the Jazzy swing, to increase the pan-genre senses of variety. Please click this link to enjoy.

I created a loop using Garageband. I call it Crazy Hours , because it sounds very busy.

To layer up the groove, I first use only one track:the Conga Groove 01, as an intro to set up the beats. At the fifth measure (Time 00:04), I pull in the 80s Dance Bass Synth 01 to build up the bass foundation. Then the main melody is played using the Exotic Sarod 01 for 8 measures, and consecutively I use the Exotic Sarod 02 for another 8 measures. Later, I deliberately juxtapose the two Sarod melodies together to create a polyphonic groove.

From the 32nd second, I keep the Conga Groove 01, change the 80s Dance Bass Synth 01 to its sibling 80s Dance Bass Synth 02, and replace the melody using the Acoustic Guitar (the Acoustic Noodling 02) for 8 measure. Then I pull in the 80s Dance Bass Synth 09. Its eminent sound quality and syncopated rhythm make the Bass protagonist and the Guitar, supporting role.

Later on, I raise the 80s Dance Bass Synth 09 for one octave, making it sound like saxophone. I also add another kits: 80s Pop Beat 09, and eliminate the Conga Groove 01 to create some rhythmic varieties.

From the 56th second, I create a contrasting section by using the Funky Electric Guitar 05, only keep the 80s Pop Beat 09 as a connecting rhythm to held the integrity of the piece. After 8 measures, I raise the pitch of the Funky Electric Guitar 05 by Major fourth but make it softer, to harmonize its original groove. However, at the very end of the interval, I truncate partial grooves in every track, and make the second parts one beat late to create a hiccup effect.

It ensues another Funky Electric Guitar 07, which has been edited later to accompany the recap melody of the Exotic Sarod 01, by taking out the middle beat. The recap melody then is accompanied by all the tracks of percussion, kits, and grooves previously used. I change the pitch of three tracks ( the Acoustic Noodling 02, the 80s Dance Bass Synth 01, and the 80s Dance Bass Synth 05) to make the groove one whole step higher at time 02:12, and resume their original pitch at time 02:16.

Another recap coming back at time 02:28, with all other tracks to accompany, followed by the Coda starting from time 02:52. I change the pitch on the Exotic Sarod 01 twice. The first time I raise it 5 degree higher, the second time one octave higher. So in the coda the groove of music repeats with varieties. From time 02:58 it starts to fade away.

I also adjust their pan positions to create a sense of space between different E-instruments.

​"Love Me like You Do" is a mid-tempo electropoppower ballad, with instrumentation backed in massive synths and crushing drums consistently. It is segmented mostly in eight measures. The exceptions are the Intro Retro (IR) bearing only four measures, the Outtro, and the Break (the orange block), which starts with a pause and slows down a bit. I counted the Break as two measures with ritardando. The Verse 1, 2, 3 shares the same melody but uses different lyrics. The Choir 1 and 2 are very similar. The whole piece has a lot of repetition, and it gradually build up emotion to the second Bridge, and surprisingly continues with a pause like an exclamation mark. The final two segments of the Choir 2 resumes its excitement, using syncopated rhythmic drumming. Then the whole piece ends with a lyrical Outtro.